


sha sha sha

by yoonbot (iverins)



Category: NCT (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7863589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iverins/pseuds/yoonbot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seokmin and Jaehyun had what Seokmin calls “history.” Seungkwan calls it a “one-sided love.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	sha sha sha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girltalk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girltalk/gifts).



> this fic is 10k longer than i intended it to be and moves at snail's pace. includes characters playing pokemon go.  
> here's to hoping jaehyun will one day talk about [dk.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcogRMKzZos)

Seungkwan wakes up bright and early at eleven in his dorm room with the curtains still covering the windows. It’s a great start to the morning – he’s feeling refreshed as he climbs down from the top bunk to see a still-sleeping Vernon-shaped lump, unmoving in the bottom bed. But he can’t find it in himself to get annoyed that Vernon doesn’t have any Monday classes today, he’s feeling _great_ , and reaches over the battleground that is his desk, covered with the assignments he stayed up until five to finish, to turn on his lamp –

Only to scream when he sees Seokmin laying on his floor, curled small in a fetal position, wishing it was humanly possible to crawl back into his mother’s womb.

“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” Seungkwan screeches, flipping on the lights. The Vernon-shaped lump vaguely stirs in the bottom bunk. He suddenly regrets telling Seokmin that he leaves his keycard under the flap of welcome week flyers. And his PIN code. Seokmin, still in that damn fetal position, just lets out what sounds like a cry for help.

Seungkwan squints, unable to decipher it. “What was that, hyung?”

Seokmin uncurls slightly so his mouth isn’t pressed against his right knee. “I saw Jung Jaehyun,” he says, eyes wide.

Seungkwan sighs, wondering what he did to deserve this, and kicks him.

 

 

 

Things could’ve gone worse, Seungkwan supplied. _Things could’ve gone worse_ was a sentiment Seungkwan reserved only for his friends who either fucked up bad or embarrassed themselves colossally. In other words, Seokmin doesn’t feel comforted at all.

The morning was already bad to begin with. Seokmin’s last prerequisite for his major required an eight AM lecture three times a week, thirty minutes from the dorms, with a lab on top of that. He’d been up until four the night before finishing the homework for said class and woken up with a crick in his neck from passing out on the floor, and, upon realizing he’d hit snooze on his alarm twice, brushed his teeth and changed out of his pajamas in record time before speed walking to class. When he was halfway there, Seokmin realized he was wearing his pants backwards when trying to stick his phone in his non-existent butt pockets.

The only good thing about how ungodly far the lecture hall was from the rest of civilization was that there was a PokeStop right outside. It had the dual purpose of keeping him occupied whenever he showed up ten minutes early and warding off thoughts of his premature mid-life crisis, which was always a plus. So there he was that Monday morning, sitting in his desired spot near the front of the hall, looking at all the Pokemon he’d caught because he had nothing better to do, wondering when he would find time to put his pants on the right way as the seats around him filled up.

As Seokmin was trying his best not to coo at how adorable the animation for Eevee was, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He calmly (Seungkwan laughed so hard Seokmin could see all the half-chewed fries in his mouth, “I bet you almost dropped your phone!”) turned to face the person.

 _That_ was when he dropped his phone.

The other boy smiled at him apologetically, familiar charming dimples denting his cheeks, fair skin still blinding even in the dim lecture hall lighting (maybe that was just the natural glow that came with being an angel on Earth). “Are you saving this seat for someone?” he said with the same deep voice that Seokmin spent half of his high school years dreamily wishing he could fall asleep to, eyes sparkling as he shook his bangs out of them. It was _Jung Jaehyun_ and oh my god, Seokmin was still such a goner.

Seokmin swallowed, thinking about what was socially acceptable to say. _Hi, I used to have a massive crush on you and I think I still do?_ No, that was too much. _You smell nice,_ because he really did, like he woke up early enough to take a shower with some really nice smelling brand of shampoo. _You touched me and I’m never washing this shirt again?_ Did he even recognize Seokmin? When he glanced up, the same expectant, sparkling eyes were still waiting for an answer. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, it didn’t look like Jaehyun knew who he was.

The answer came to him at the very last moment. “N-no, it’s free!” he sputtered, scrambling to take his backpack off the adjacent seat. The other boy smiled at him gratefully before sitting down.

“Thank you so much,” Jaehyun breathed, leaning over to take his notebook out of his backpack. Seokmin felt every nerve in his body simultaneously shooting impulses. He felt fried. “I lost my glasses so I can’t see the board from the back, and this is, like, the last seat in the front.”

Their seats were extremely close together, in the way university lecture halls like to cram as many students in as fire-hazard regulations allow. And was it just him, or was it hot in here? Seokmin let out a pathetic sounding _uh-huh_ because he didn’t trust himself to form words.

He finally fished his phone out from where he had dropped it in his lap, hoping that scrolling through his Pokemon will help calm his nerves. It was going great for a second – the Eevee was still adorable on his screen –

And then the smell of shampoo grew a little stronger. “Oh, that one’s cute! I haven’t seen it yet,” Jaehyun said, an amicable smile on his face, leaning a centimeter closer to Seokmin in their already-cramped seating arrangement. Seokmin just looked back at him, feeling a flush creep to his face, and willed himself not to spontaneously combust.

Luckily, the professor came in that moment, already talking about reactions. Seokmin had never been so glad that lecture’s about to start.

The only problem was that Jung Jaehyun smelled really nice sitting beside him. Needless to say, Seokmin didn’t really remember what happened in the seventy-five minutes that followed.

 

 

 

“So,” Seungkwan says, after Seokmin’s done describing Jaehyun’s shampoo as _a handsome man smell, you know, the kind when the dude knows he’s so much cooler but is still really humble about shitting over your life. In the best way._ “All I’ve learned is that Jung Jaehyun is in your chemistry lecture and spoke more words to you today than he did in all of high school.” Pauses to take a sip of his soymilk. Considers. “And that he’s a Pokemon noob.”

Seokmin looks offended. “He is _not_ a Pokemon noob!” Vernon, who had finally been woken up by Seokmin’s ultrasonic screams when Seungkwan sat on top of him, the last straw of refusing to get up off his floor, takes the seat next to Seungkwan with a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and a smiley face drawn in with ketchup. “I appreciate how people who didn’t grow up watching Pokemon are now seeing the light,” he sniffs, putting pepper into his soup.

Seungkwan stabs a piece of sausage while rolling his eyes. “Look at you defending him already! And you called me a loser when I asked you what a PokeStop was a month ago.” He sticks the food in his mouth before pointing at Seokmin with his fork, accusingly. “I mean, who hasn’t seen a fucking Eevee yet?”

“Me,” Vernon chimes in, mixing his eggs with the ketchup smiley face. Seokmin beams at him. Seungkwan looks like he’s contemplating throwing Vernon out the window.

“You don’t even play Pokemon Go,” Seungkwan hisses. Vernon shrugs and eats his eggs.

“Anyway,” Seokmin starts again, leaning closer to Seungkwan, who refuses to look at him after Seokmin dismissed his pride. “What am I gonna do?”

Seungkwan dips a piece of sausage into Seokmin’s soup. He lets it slide because sometimes – emphasis on _sometimes_ – Seungkwan gives him pretty good advice. Seokmin’s hoping today will be one of those times.

After a moment, a smile creeps onto Seungkwan’s lips. “You say this as if he remembers who you are,” he offers to Seokmin, like the little shit he is. Vernon laughs around a mouthful of toast.

Seokmin covers his face with his hands and groans. “I need to get new friends.”

 

 

 

 **seok (1:53pm)** sos emergency  
**soon (1:53pm)** what’s up???  
**seok (1:53pm)** it concerns my love life  
**seok (1:53pm)** seungkwan is a shit friend so i can’t talk to him about it HELP ME  
**seok (1:54pm)** R U FREE RN  
**soon (1:54pm)** o i thought this was like a real emergency  
**soon (1:54pm)** i’m in class until 6  
**seok (1:55pm)** THIS IS A REAL EMERGENCY  
**seok (1:55pm)** i’m more important than ur classes ):  
**soon (1:56pm)** jihoon wants to come  
**seok (1:56pm)** nO  
**seok (1:56pm)** omg is he reading these fml nvr mind i don’t wanna know  
**soon (1:57pm)** jk he says he doesn’t have time to waste  
**soon (1:57pm)** i quote “i’m not in the mood for a joke”  
**seok (1:58pm)** W O W  
**soon (1:58pm)** lbr ur love life is a joke  
**soon (1:58pm)** no offense it’s nonexistent  
**soon (2:00pm)** seok?  
**soon (2:05pm)** seok???????  
**seok (2:06pm)** im not letting u crash at my dorm anymore  
**soon (2:06pm)** NOOOOOO  
**soon (2:06pm)** this is what i get for telling the truth ):  
**soon (2:10pm)** HAVE MERCY ON THE POOR SOULS THAT LIVE THE APARTMENT LIFE  
**soon (2:12pm)** do u think minghao will let me into ur guys room  
**seok (2:15pm)** he says u snore 2 loud  
**soon (2:16pm)** ……….  
**soon (2:23pm)** ok imma skip my 2:30 R U HAPPY NOW  
**seok (2:23pm)** :D

 

 

 

Seokmin and Jaehyun had what Seokmin calls “history.” Seungkwan calls it a “one-sided love,” with a variation of adjectives depending on the mood he’s in when Seokmin brings it up. According to their neutral third party Soonyoung, another friend who went to their high school, _pathetic_ was the most accurate.

It all began in eleventh grade after first semester, when they changed seats in English class. Seokmin’s teacher was notorious for being a hard-ass, which translated to a surprise quiz on the first day back from break. Seokmin, whose worst subject was English, wasn’t about to let his grade drop right after he’d gotten a clean slate, so he stayed up the night before memorizing vocabulary and practicing sentence structure until he fell asleep and dreamed in English.

The bad thing was, he’d been so bent on studying that he forgot to reset his alarm to wake up in time for the bus. In a last minute scramble to the bus stop down the road, he left his pencil case at his house, along with his pride and dignity when Seungkwan burst out laughing at the state of his bedhead on the bus.

Of course, Seokmin didn’t realize that he’d forgotten to pack his pencil case until their teacher told them to clear their desks except for pencils and erasers. In the haze of last-minute anxiety that was the teacher beginning to hand out the quizzes, he turned to his friend Mingyu, who seemed to be silently praying for the best – in his case, not having to be stuck in remedial classes again over break.

“Mingyu!” he whispered. Mingyu looked at him with the eyes of a man who was accepting his sad fate. “Do you have a pencil I can borrow?”

Mingyu frowned, his moment of zen broken. “I just put my pencil case away.” The teacher was approaching their aisle.

“For fuck’s sake,” Seokmin hissed under his breath. There was no other choice. He’d have to ask for a pencil from their hard-ass teacher, and he’d make a snide remark about it. Would that affect his grade? Seokmin had heard he held grudges over little things –

And then someone placed a pencil in front of him. It was the pretty nice mechanical kind, looking as good as new other than the whittled down eraser at the top. Seokmin looked up, confused.

“Sorry that there’s no eraser,” the boy sitting in the seat before him said with an apologetic smile. And were those dimples on his cheek? Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds before the boy turned back to the front, where the student was waiting for him to pass the rest of the tests down their row.

“Thank you,” Seokmin whispered when the boy turned around again to hand him his quiz. He – _Jung Jaehyun,_ according to the seating chart that was still projected on the board – just shot Seokmin a wider smile before starting his test.

Seokmin’s pretty sure his heart stopped at that moment.

 

 

 

Soonyoung sighs, stopping Seokmin from telling his rendition of the whole incident again. The end, as he’d informed Seokmin before, was the cheesiest part. “And then it was love at first sight and you asked him to marry you but he couldn’t hear you because angels hear on different wavelengths, blah blah blah,” he says before Seokmin recovers from being offended.

“That’s not how it went!” Seokmin squeaks, loud enough so the lady sitting at the table next to them in the Student Union looks over at them warily. He clears his throat and lowers his voice. “That’s not how it went,” he repeats, trying to make a point. Soonyoung shakes his head in response.

“Only because you were too tongue-tied whenever he came within five feet of you,” Soonyoung reminds him. “Did you ever give him his pencil back?”

Seokmin thinks about how said pencil accusingly sits in his backpack right now, between their feet underneath the table. Soonyoung doesn’t have to know that, though. He presses his lips together before he betrays himself.

“But,” Soonyoung starts again, looking at him with pity in his eyes. “Did you really not know that Jung Jaehyun goes here?”

Seokmin places his chin on the table. “Do you know how hard it was for me to stop checking his Facebook in the months leading up to graduation? I had to prepare myself for separation!” He looks up miserably at Soonyoung. “I mean,” he says. “Did _you_ know Jung Jaehyun was coming here?”

Soonyoung suddenly pretends to be engrossed with something on his phone, whistling. Seokmin starts squeaking again. “You did? And you didn’t tell me?” The lady who sat next to them gets up, annoyed, and leaves. “I can’t believe this!”

“I was going to!” Soonyoung insists. His eyes plead for Seokmin not to take away his dorm privileges. “But then you gave me that whole spiel about getting over him and not lingering on some ‘first love’ when you were going to university so I decided against it.”

Seokmin cringes, remembering that phase and the infamous “Jung Jaehyun isn’t even that great” speech he gave Seungkwan, who held out like a trooper for the whole four hours. Soonyoung does have a point, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. “But still,” he coughs.

“Hey, how bad can it be?” Soonyoung says, trying to cheer him up. He moves to the seat next to Seokmin and slings an arm around his shoulders, crushing him to his side. Seokmin only groans in response. “There’s so many people at uni, what’re the chances that you’re actually gonna see him every day?”

 

 

 

Seokmin’s been jinxed.

He’s at lab the next day, passing time before class starts by checking his email on his phone. When he’s done with that, there’s still seven minutes to spare, so he decides to text Jeonghan, his fourth year friend who switched into their major late on the grounds that he was “finding himself” during his first two years. He’d probably have to take a fifth year. After meeting through Soonyoung, they’d taken all their prerequisites together and tried to be lab partners whenever they were in the same sections. Seokmin was lowkey bitter that Jeonghan never showed up for lecture but always did well in class, anyway.

 **jeonghan’s pabo (9:53am)** u know lab is required  
**jeonghan’s pabo (9:53am)** …r u even awake rn  
**momhan (9:54am)** shit omg i just woke up  
**momhan (9:54am)** save me a seat imma sprint there  
**momhan (9:55am)** pls be my lab partner?  
**jeonghan’s pabo (9:56am)** u running??? i’ll believe it when i c it ㅋㅋㅋㅋ  
**jeonghan’s pabo (9:56am)** also u say that like i have friends other than u in this class  
**momhan (9:57am)** that’s my son

Deciding that was an apt place to end their conversation, also considering that Jeonghan was probably too busy trying to get ready for class, Seokmin puts his phone away and looks up only to see a familiar pair of broad shoulders leaning over and taking notes – hair clipped closer to his neck than Seokmin remembers it being in high school – sitting before him.

 _No._ The TA tells them to pass their homework to the front of the room. Seokmin rummages through his folders, heart thumping loudly in his chest, before placing it on the desk. _Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god_ and that’s when Jung Jaehyun turns around.

He blinks in surprise. It looks like he recognizes Seokmin this time. Then, he flashes Seokmin a winning smile that makes his stomach flip inside out as he holds out his hand for Seokmin’s assignment.

“Um,” Seokmin says. "Hi." He doesn’t know why he says it. All they’re doing is handing in their damn homework. The girl sitting behind him is poking his back with her papers.

Jaehyun’s still smiling at him, like he doesn’t think Seokmin just made a fool out of himself. He takes the pile of assignments from Seokmin’s (shaking) hand with his steady one. “Hi,” he says back, before turning forward, preventing Seokmin from enduring more damage to his eyes from staring at his bright-as-the-sun smile.

Lab proceeds relatively normally after that – Jaehyun doesn’t turn back around, Seokmin surprisingly resists the urge to curl up under the table and whisper _I’m such a fucking loser_ to himself over and over. The TA goes over the instructions for the lab they’ll be doing next week, writing down the key points on the board and Seokmin somehow collects himself enough to take notes. He comforts himself with the thought of booking it out of the room once section’s over, which helps take his mind off of his failure from twenty minutes ago, when suddenly Jaehyun’s looking at him again.

From the rest of the bustle in the room, Seokmin deduces that their TA just let them pick their own lab partners, which is great. What’s not great is that Jeonghan still hasn’t shown up and that Jaehyun is moving his chair closer to Seokmin, which means that for some odd reason, Jaehyun probably wants to ask if Seokmin would like to be his lab partner.

“Hey, I’m Jaehyun,” he says, flashing that winning smile at Seokmin again. Seokmin is definitely going to go blind if this continues. “Uh, thanks again for yesterday,” he rubs the back of his neck nervously and the winning smile fades into a sheepish grin on his face. It’s so adorable that Seokmin thinks he’s going to say something dumb again if he opens his mouth. “This is gonna sound pathetic, but I have no one I know in this class? So, um, would it be cool if we were lab partners?”

The world stops spinning. Lab. Partners. Jaehyun? Seokmin wonders if this is real life. “Uh…” he starts, trying to comprehend what’s going on. Jaehyun’s grin fades.

“Unless you have someone you already want to work with. That’s cool!” Jaehyun motions with his hands, looking flustered. Seokmin feels like a total dick for thinking it’s cute. “Sorry about that, I just –”

“No!” Seokmin blurts out quickly. He finds the correct words to say. “Uh, I don’t. So it’s fine.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun says, smiling again. “Awesome. We’ll trade numbers after class?”

Is this a dream? Seokmin blinks several times, wondering if he’s actually still in his dorm room, sleeping through lab. He’s not. “Yeah, sure,” he replies before their TA starts going through where to find the pre-lab.

Jeonghan pouts at him, betrayed, when Seokmin mouths a _sorry_ to him with his most apologetic look on his face after class. He dismisses Seokmin with a shake of his head and a mutter of something along the lines of _kids these days_ when he sees that Jaehyun is walking over to him and leaves without waiting for Seokmin. He guesses he deserves that.

“Hey,” Jaehyun starts, looking guilty after he’s put his number into Seokmin’s phone and as Seokmin is typing his into Jaehyun’s. Did he see the whole thing with Jeonghan? Seokmin wonders how to tell him that it wasn’t a big deal without looking like a horrible friend. “I just realized I forgot to ask you for your name this entire time.”

Seokmin almost says, _my name is not worthy to pass through the lips of a god_ but catches himself, directing his attention back at entering his number in Jaehyun’s phone. “Seokmin,” he tells him when he’s done, not trusting himself to multitask in front of Jaehyun. He hands Jaehyun’s phone back.

Jaehyun takes it back. Their fingertips brush for a split second and it sends tingles through the rest of Seokmin’s body. “See you around, then, Seokmin!” he says, before walking in the opposite direction of where Seokmin’s going.

Seokmin stands there for a good five minutes, fingers still tingling, trying his best not to giggle but failing miserably.

 

 

 

“And then this snake!” Jeonghan says, pointing at Seokmin, who’s innocuously slurping his noodles. “Tells me he’s agreed to be lab partners with this guy…this guy named Jaehyuk!”

Seungcheol, the definition of “someone who has their shit together” in Seokmin’s book – half from being friends with Jeonghan for so long and the other half from dealing with his resident’s problems as an RA – calmly interrupts Jeonghan’s streak by correcting him. “You mean Jaehyun,” he says. Seokmin guesses this is at least the third time he’s heard this story – first from Jeonghan’s angry texts, wondering how his child (Seokmin) could abandon him, second from when Seungcheol, Seokmin, and Soonyoung were at the table, and again now that Seungkwan, Vernon, and Minghao have come back from getting the pizza they were waiting in line for. He doesn’t know how Seungcheol does it.

“Jaehyuk, Jaehyun, _whatever._ What matters here is that this child I raised doesn’t care about me,” Jeonghan frowns, wiping fake tears away from his eyes. Seokmin vaguely remembers the time Soonyoung told him Jeonghan wanted to be a theater major for a month. Seungcheol pats him on the back while reaching for some of Vernon’s fries.

Soonyoung laughs at him. “You’ve only known each other for two years!” Jeonghan hisses and Soonyoung just makes a face at him.

“The sad story of a once-filial child abandoning his mother for love,” Seungkwan narrates dramatically with a shit eating grin on his face. Seokmin stops mid-chew. Jeonghan wasn’t supposed to know that. Heck, even Seungcheol wasn’t supposed to know that, after hearing that he passed Mingyu some condoms to congratulate him on dating.

Jeonghan freezes. Seokmin gives Seungkwan a looks that says _I thought we were friends._ Seungkwan just looks satisfied with himself. Minghao, sitting next to him, seems very amused. “Seokmin likes this Jaehyun person?” he says, stiffly.

“Ever since high school!” Soonyoung pipes up. Sometimes, Seokmin thinks Soonyoung is his most empathetic friend. Other times, he’s sure Soonyoung just wants to throw everything into chaos.

Seokmin rolls his eyes so he’s looking at the ceiling. “We are not having this discussion right now,” he pleads, hoping some higher up, dining hall ceiling power will come to his aid.

To no avail. “Is that what you guys were talking about yesterday?” Vernon asks, gesturing to Seungkwan and Seokmin. Seokmin makes chopping motions at his neck for him to stop talking, but it’s too late.

Jeonghan sighs. “First I get passed up for another lab partner, and now I’m out of the loop about Seokmin’s love life?” he mutters, skewering his asparagus with his fork purposefully. “I give up on raising kids.”

“Chan’s coming here next year,” Seungkwan mentions and Jeonghan perks up. He’d taken a shine to Chan when he’d visited campus to get a tour from Soonyoung, Seokmin, and Seungkwan.

“There’s still hope in the world,” Jeonghan smiles, appeased. They all go back to eating, Seungkwan taking the silence as a chance to talk about the insistent girl who literally chased him down on his way to class, a flyer about blood donations in her hand.

That’s when Seokmin’s phone vibrates. Shit. Jeonghan frowns again. “No phones at the table,” he mock-scolds, before getting up to get more food. Vernon goes with him.

Seokmin does his best to look at the message without having Soonyoung loom over his shoulder, but when he leans to his right, it gives Minghao a good view of the screen instead. And after living with Minghao for the past two years, Seokmin’s learned that he’s secretly a snitch. In the end, Seokmin decides that they’re going to find out anyway and opens the damn thing.

_**Jaehyun (7:08pm)** hey it’s jaehyun! what time would be good to work on the pre-lab?_

Holy shit. “What happened?” Seungcheol inquires further, telling Seokmin that he actually said that out loud. He really needs to work on his brain-to-mouth filter. Soonyoung wiggles his eyebrows at him and Minghao just shrugs before cutting into his chicken thigh again.

He holds his phone up so Seungcheol can see. Seungkwan crowds over to look at it, too. He looks slightly disappointed when he settles back into his seat, as if he was expecting something better from the way Seokmin had an annoyingly large smile of simultaneous unadulterated happiness and nervousness on his face.

“Tell him all the time,” Seungkwan sighs. “With a winky face at the end. You know, let him know you’re interested.”

Seokmin makes a face at that. “We’re lab partners, Seungkwan. He didn’t even know my name until today.”

“That’s kinda just sad,” Minghao finally chimes in, totally unhelpful. Seokmin briefly thinks about signing up for room swap. And finding new friends. If only he wasn’t bad with talking to strangers.

He puts his phone away. “You know what, I’m going back to the room now,” he says, just as Jeonghan’s sitting down again.

“What happened?” Jeonghan asks when he sees Seokmin picking up his plates.

Seungcheol pats him on the back again while reaching for more of Vernon’s fries. They’re soggy now. “You should pay more attention to your children.”

 

 

 

Seokmin can’t feel his fingers. It’s been – he looks down at his phone – around ten minutes since he started waiting outside the small coffee shop situated near the dorms for Jaehyun to show up. It wasn’t like Jaehyun was late, Seokmin was just unnecessarily early, eager to escape the “study session” that he’d been in with Seungkwan, Minghao, and Mingyu, which was really just Mingyu and Minghao bickering over their group assignment and Seungkwan interjecting every now and then with a countdown to Seokmin’s so-called “date.” Yeah, Seokmin shivers, it was better to leave that earlier than later.

They’d seen each other in lecture again yesterday – Seokmin and Jaehyun – Jaehyun sliding into the seat next to Seokmin again, this time on his left. Again, Jaehyun had smelled too good for seventy fifty-five in the morning and almost put him in cardiac arrest with his dimples. But this time, Jaehyun actually knew Seokmin’s name, enough to say, “Seokmin right?” to which he replied with a stuttered _Uh, yeah!_

“Hey, you’re free tomorrow, yeah?” Jaehyun asked, opening his notebook to the page he last left off on. Seokmin had actually managed to reply to his text the night before, after two hours of wondering _is it too soon now? How about_ now? in a dark room after Minghao had gone off to dance practice with what was, in his and Soonyoung’s opinion, a nonchalant enough “Thursday.” “Maybe we can meet up at the café around nine?”

So here Seokmin was, freezing his ass off. Coffee would be pretty nice right about now. And then Seokmin remembers he doesn’t have enough swipes after letting Soonyoung mooch off of him for dinner yesterday, which is why he was standing outside in the first place.

“Seokmin!” he hears. Jaehyun’s jogging towards him, breaths puffing white clouds into the air. For some reason, it reminds Seokmin of a baby dragon. Not like he’s seen one of those before, but he imagined it’d be cute. He really needed to stop letting his mind wander. “I thought I was gonna be early but you’re already here? Sorry, were you waiting for long?”

“No!” Seokmin says, voice squeaky to his own ears. Why did it always betray him? “It’s fine, it’s fine…I didn’t feel like starting my paper for my other class. Not that it’s due this week.” He laughs nervously.

Jaehyun grins at that, nodding in understanding, and it’s the first time Seokmin’s looked past his dimples to notice how his teeth are so even and nice. He feels a flush crawling up past his cheeks to his ears. “Wait,” Jaehyun says after they’ve walked past the doors, heater instantly thawing Seokmin’s frozen nose. “Then why didn’t you just wait inside?”

He grimaces. “I don’t have enough swipes for coffee and it’s…awkward sitting inside when you – especially when you’re alone and don’t get anything?” he tries. The last time he did the same with Seungkwan, he was told he had no balls.

“I don’t like sitting alone!” he had whined. Seungkwan clicked his tongue at him in disapproval and brought Soonyoung with him the next time, who shamelessly claimed a four-person table for them like he belonged, even though he hadn’t lived in the dorms since freshman year. Seokmin had gawked.

Jaehyun’s smile doesn’t disappear into a judging glance at Seokmin’s confession, like he half-expected it would. It’s confusing. “I hate that feeling!” Jaehyun agrees with a chuckle, looking up at the menu, and it just confuses Seokmin even more. Did Jung Jaehyun just agree with him? Did they actually have something in common?

“And don’t worry about swipes,” he continues as Seokmin’s still trying to process this sudden revelation. “I have premier, so I always have a shit ton of extras. I’ll get you a coffee?”

Seokmin didn’t think he could fall even more for Jung Jaehyun, but apparently he was wrong.

 

 

 

Two hours later and after burning his tongue four times, Seokmin found himself helping Jaehyun with acid base reactions. The initial anxious churning in Seokmin’s stomach at sitting across from Jaehyun and having to stare at his distractingly attractive face seemed to settle after he pulled up the pre-lab on his laptop and saw how long it was. Even the giddiness from breathing the same air as his crush couldn’t mask the looming doom of a sleepless night dedicated to chemistry.

“Does that make sense?” Seokmin asks, finally looking up at Jaehyun. Jaehyun scrunches his nose a little in concentration, staring hard at the paper. It’s ridiculously adorable and Seokmin averts his gaze back down to his pencil to prevent himself from doing something stupid.

It was weird – Seokmin always had this image of Jaehyun being super smart in his mind. Maybe it was from back in high school, when Jaehyun pretty much got full marks on all his English assignments. But, as Seokmin re-explained which bonds were broken and which were formed, he found this new side of Jaehyun endearing, even if it did mean that they wouldn’t be able to finish everything tonight.

“You know,” Seokmin yawns, leaning back in his chair. Jaehyun looks up from where he’s hunched over the paper, trying to work on the next part by himself. His eyes, a little tired but still sparkling, make Seokmin’s thoughts go blank. “You’re not really what I expected,” he blurts instead, tongue tripping over the words.

Oh, fuck. Jaehyun scrunches his nose a little, in that adorable confused way of his, trying to figure things out. “Hmm?” he hums amicably, waiting for Seokmin to elaborate. The pencil goes slack in his fingers, focusing on Seokmin over their assignment.

Shit, shit, shit. “Well, uh, what I mean is that…” Seokmin dawdles, trying to find something else to say than _I have a huge crush on you and I thought you were a god but you’re actually not which I find really cute_. “Uh, I, um, never worked on pre-labs together before with my other lab partners. It’s,” he pauses to swallow. “Not required, you know. I mean, I think you know that.”

Jaehyun patiently waits out his tide of words and gives him a wide grin before saying, “Ah,” and returning to the assignment. A quiet that makes Seokmin’s skin itch settles between them.

He starts to ramble again. Silence always did made him talk more. “Yeah,” he chuckles nervously. “’Cuz it’s like, inconvenient to meet up, you know? I mean, for them. Not for me.” Seokmin inwardly cringes at himself. Could he make this conversation any worse?

“I don’t have a life.” He could.

Jaehyun laughs lightly as if Seokmin didn’t just admit that he was basically a loser. “Same!” he says. “Especially this semester. When I realized I was gonna have to take this class I knew I’d have to spend all the time I don’t spend procrastinating studying? My friends say they haven’t seen me since first week.”

The word _procrastinating_ reminds him of Jeonghan. Who was not a huge fan of chemistry. “Do you not like chem?” Seokmin muses, before realizing he was distracting Jaehyun. “Oh, shit, sorry,” he says, waving his hands. “I should stop talking to you.”

Jaehyun shakes his head, making his bangs fall into his eyes, and consequently, makes Seokmin want to brush them out of his face. Seokmin’s ears burn at the thought. “Nah,” he says, dropping the pencil and reaching his arms over his head to stretch instead. “Don’t worry about it. And yeah…I don’t hate chem, just not good at it.” He gives Seokmin an embarrassed grin. “I’m better at physics, honestly.”

“I suck at physics,” Seokmin scowls at the mention of the subject. Jaehyun looks like he’s used to hearing that.

“Maybe we can help each other out,” he suggests casually with a shrug. Wait. Did that mean Jaehyun wouldn’t mind meeting up like this even after this lab was over? Seokmin’s head jerks up to look at Jaehyun, wondering if he’s serious, but he’s looking back at the paper again, reminding Seokmin that he should keep working if he wants to get at least three hours of sleep tonight.

They call it quits around one in the morning, when Jaehyun’s spent the last thirty minutes twirling his pencil between his fingers and Seokmin’s been trying not to blurt out how hot he thought that was. “Hey, thanks man,” Jaehyun says before they walk their separate ways, clapping Seokmin on the shoulder. He’s glad it’s too dark out for Jaehyun to see how red his cheeks probably are. “See you tomorrow at lecture?”

“Yeah,” Seokmin echoes, half-tired, half-dazed from where the tingling sensation is starting in the place Jaehyun touched him. “At eight,” he says after a lengthy pause that could’ve been super awkward.

Jaehyun just gives him one of his winning smiles, practically high-beam headlights in the darkness, blinding. Seokmin wonders if he should consider getting his eyes checked one of these days as he walks back to his dorm.

He doesn’t sleep well that night, from what he convinces himself are the effects of caffeine on his delicate circadian rhythm, not the fact that he just spent four hours with Jung Jaehyun. Definitely not.

 

 

 

**Group chat: SVT**

**dk (5:00am)** oh my god guys i’m in love  
**dk (5:01am)** lksdghaskdfshlkgj  
**8 (5:10am)** i think we already knew that  
**hoshbrown (5:10am)** tf y r u guys up rn  
**8 (5:10am)** y r u up rn  
**dk (5:10am)** bc what is sleep when there r FEELINgs  
**dk (5:11am)** and i thought u were sleeping minghao??? wtf  
**8 (5:11am)** who can sleep when ur tossing and turning so much  
**8 (5:12am)** i think even soonyoung’s snores r better  
**dk (5:12am)** D:  
**hoshbrown (5:12am)** :D  
**mingU (5:13am)** guys can u not rn i thought my alarm went off ):  
**dk (5:13am)** lol  
**8 (5:13am)** lol  
**hoshbrown (5:13am)** lol  
**hoshbrown (5:14am)** dammit i was last  
**8 (5:14am)** lol  
**dk (5:14am)** lol  
**mingU (5:15am)** SRSLY GUYS

 

 

 

“What’s so great about Jung Jaehyun, anyway?” Seungkwan scoffs. It’s both a legitimate question and serving the purpose of stopping Seokmin from blabbering about how Jaehyun keeps sitting next to him during lecture when he’s “not worthy.” Soonyoung finally looks up from the game he was playing on his phone, interested, while Jihoon is still napping, as still as a rock, on the other side of the bench.

Seokmin looks scandalized. “Did you really just ask that question?”

“Tell us what you like about him,” Soonyoung tries instead, while Seungkwan throws his arms up in defeat, muttering _I see how it is_ before going back to nibbling on the crusts of his bread.

The dreamy look settles back onto Seokmin’s face. “His eyes are so pretty. He smells so nice like, all the time. And his smile is literally the sun? Every time he smiles at me, I think I’m gonna go blind.” Seungkwan, sitting next to him, rolls his eyes at Soonyoung. “And oh my god, his dimples. Did you guys know he had dimples?”

“Okay,” Seungkwan interrupts, waving a hand in front of Seokmin’s face to bring him back down to Earth. “So Jung Jaehyun’s hot. Anything else?”

Seokmin frowns. He wasn’t done yet. “His shoulders are really broad –”

“That’s a physical trait again,” Soonyoung points out. Seokmin pauses in thought. Was it?

After another five minutes of what Seokmin thinks is deep thought, he buries his head in his arms and groans. “Do you guys think I’m shallow?” he sighs, muffled against his wrist. Seungkwan looks at him with sympathy for once. “You totally think I’m shallow.”

“It’s just that,” Soonyoung starts, searching for the words to make Seokmin feel better. He obviously doesn’t quite find them. “You’ve liked him for so long that we thought there was more to it –”

Seungkwan adds on. “Maybe just think about it more? If you come up with stuff, maybe you can even confess some time in the future, for your sanity.” _And ours,_ he thinks. When he looks over, Seokmin’s visibly gone pale at that idea. Wrong move.

At that moment, Jihoon stirs. “Surprised you think he’s capable of that,” he mutters, indicating that he’s been listening the whole time, eyes still closed. Seokmin, frowning, makes a motion to poke him, but Jihoon cracks an eye open before he can go through with it.

Seokmin squeaks and flinches away. Soonyoung just laughs.

 

 

 

Seokmin thinks about it during the coming week. What exactly _did_ he like about Jaehyun? That winning smile of his and how it blinded Seokmin? The way his dimples dented his cheeks and how his eyes turned into happy crescents? The way he scrunched his nose like a bunny when he was confused, and how young he looked when he came to lecture with his hair still wet from his morning shower?

Of course he thought Jaehyun was hot. Like that time back in high school, when they were in different P.E classes but changed in the same locker room and Seokmin happened to see Jaehyun’s shirtless back. The sight of those attractively broad shoulders combined with the steam of the basketball team hitting the showers made Seokmin think he might faint. The way Jaehyun sometimes stretched out his arms across the table from him, rolled-up sweater sleeves showing off nice forearms, and occasionally how Jaehyun would pull on the neck of his shirts, unintentionally showing Seokmin a hint of his collarbone. But when Seokmin thinks about what he likes beyond Jaehyun’s face and body – he giggles, shy at the thought and Minghao pelts him with his pillow – he comes up with a giant blank for something he thinks he should have answers for.

He thinks back to high school, fuzzy memories where Jaehyun shines bright through the haze of teenage angst, like his sunshine-like smile. How Seokmin didn’t even notice Jaehyun was in choir with him until his section leader, Dongyoung, reassigned him to the altos. How one time during a recital, Seokmin was standing in the row right in front of him, and he could hear Jaehyun’s soothing voice singing notes different from his own in his right ear (Seokmin messed up a couple times that day). Sitting behind him still in English, wondering how to return Jaehyun’s pencil and tell him _thank you for letting me use it_ but failing every time Jaehyun turned around to pass him something, looking at Seokmin with his all-too-attractive face. How Jaehyun actually said _Lee Seokmin_ once, handing out some kind of advertisement for one of their school’s extracurricular clubs, and how Seokmin only silently received it, wondering if he could give Jaehyun the pencil back then.

Seungkwan telling Seokmin how unsubtly he sneaked glances at Jaehyun every time they were in the same room. Mingyu being oblivious and not noticing until their senior year – after Seungkwan and Seokmin bickered over how Seokmin should “confess before you never see him again” at least twice a week – and until they were sitting in the cafeteria, two tables away from Jaehyun and his friends, loudly saying “ _Oh_ , so you like Jung Jaehyun?” Seokmin kicking Mingyu in the shins, hard, to get him to shut up, while subtly (unsubtly) glancing at Jaehyun through the corner of his vision, who, luckily, didn’t look like he heard.

He frowns. This is always where his train of thought ends, with the unfortunate aftermath of telling his friends everything. Seokmin wishes he wasn’t such a blabbermouth, but the words usually came out before he realized it was better to keep them to himself.

Anyway, the point is that even after thinking – which he was capable of doing, contrary to what Jihoon told him was “popular belief” – he really didn’t know why exactly he liked Jung Jaehyun so much. Despite his godly good looks. And then the cycle began all over again.

“I think we should get to know each other,” Seokmin says after an, in his opinion, unsettling silence between him and Jaehyun in the library on Saturday. He’s helping Jaehyun finish his pre-lab, already done with his own, and keeps fidgeting once Jaehyun replies to his explanations with an enlightened _ah_ and goes back to working things quietly out on his own. Basically, Seokmin has nothing better to do. And when he has nothing better to do, he starts talking.

The lead of Jaehyun’s pencil breaks. Did he really just say that out loud? “I-I mean,” Seokmin starts, wringing his fingers, trying to think of statements that could minimize the damage. Jaehyun waits for him to collect himself, looking a little caught off-guard. This was a disaster. “You know…” he trails off, wincing and hoping a hole would open up beneath him and swallow him. Then he remembers they’re actually on the second floor. “Um.”

Jaehyun squints at him, as if he’s focusing really hard on one part of Seokmin’s face. Or maybe his eyes are just tired. It is almost eleven. “You mean like friends?” he says after blinking a couple times, polite smile on his face like he’s stating the obvious.

Jung Jaehyun is his savior. Along with his everything. “Exactly!” Seokmin says, trying not to sound over eager. He fails. “Like friends,” he laughs, uncomfortably. “Because I don’t have that many. I mean, I do! But they’re all from high school other than my roommate…he’s from China.”

Jaehyun’s grin grows, either politely ignoring how awkward Seokmin is or just not noticing. “Yeah, no, that’s cool,” he says, calmly going back to finishing his assignment. “Pretty much the same for me,” and is that a hint of a blush on his cheeks? It must be the library lighting. Or Seokmin’s rose-tinted glasses of love. “Now that I’ve thought about it,” Jaehyun says, hiding his mouth behind the back of his hand. “We’ve seen each other almost every day this past week?”

“Really?” Seokmin says, gaping in surprise. So this is what heaven feels like. “I’m usually not this good with strangers,” he admits, sheepishly.

“Me neither,” Jaehyun chuckles, amused at Seokmin’s surprised expression. “But we’re friends now, right?”

Seokmin thinks he might faint.

 

 

 

**Group chat: SVT**

**dk** changed his name to **jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!!**

 **jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:23am)** :D  
**8 (2:24am)** go to sleep  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:24am)** D:  
**scoops (2:24am)** what happened seok?  
**momhan (2:24am)** is this about jaehyub?  
**hoshbrown (2:25am)** ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
**hoshbrown (2:25am)** ...jeonghan his name is right there  
**momhan (2:25am)** who said i didn’t know that  
**hoshbrown (2:25am)** burnnnnnn  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:25am)** HE SAID WE’RE FRRNDS  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:25am)** FRENDS  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:26am)** FRIENDS GDI MINGHAO I HEAR U LAUGHING @ ME  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:26am)** also RUDE jeonghan i thought u supported me ):  
**8 (2:26am)** guys do u know how many times i’ve had to here this story  
**seungkwannie (2:26am)** *hear  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:27am)** hAHA KARMA who’s laughing now  
**8 (2:27am)** guys seokmin just dropped his phone on his face  
**seungkwannie (2:28am)** also y do u always send these messages @ 2am  
**mingU (2:28am)** guys i thought it was monday already and that my alarm was going off  
**mingU (2:28am)** y u do this  
**seungkwannie (2:29am)** i just said that dumbgyu  
**mingU (2:29am)** ur the meanest dongsaeng evarrr ):  
**momhan (2:30am)** don’t encourage him  
**seungkwannie (2:30am)** :D  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:30am)** GUYS FOCUS  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:30am)** LOOK @ HOW FAR I’VE COME  
**scoops (2:30am)** oops i was busy doing hw but congrats seok!!!  
**hoshbrown (2:31am)** fanboy dreams coming true  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:31am)** …….  
**seungkwannie (2:32am)** from admirer afar to admirer up close  
**8 (2:32am)** can u guys stop so i can sleep  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:33am)** Y R U GUYS LIKE THIS  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:33am)** y can’t u all b more like scoops ):  
**seungkwannie (2:33am)** bc some1’s gotta bring u back to reality  
**hoshbrown (2:34am)** wut would u do w/o us???  
**mingU (2:35am)** idk what’s going on anymore  
**mingU (2:35am)** i don’t even know who’s this jung jaehyun friend guy  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:35am)** …….  
**momhan (2:35am)** i’ve taught u well mingyu

 **jihoon** left the group chat

 **jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:37am)** ………  
**seungkwannie (2:37am)** …….  
**mingU (2:37am)** …….  
**hoshbrown (2:37am)** L M F A O  
**momhan (2:37am)** i didn’t even know he was in this chat  
**hoshbrown (2:38am)** i thought he removed himself 2 months ago  
**hoshbrown (2:38am)** when u and seok used this chat 2 talk about lab  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:39am)** NOOO DOES THIS MEAN HE’S SEEN EVERYTHING?  
**8 (2:39am)** i’m going to sleep  
**seungkwannie (2:39am)** me 2  
**seungkwannie (2:39am)** beauty sleep is more impt than gossip  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:40am)** WAIT I HAVEN’T EVEN SAID ANYTHING YET  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:45am)** guys?????  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:47am)** )))))): is anyone still here???  
**jung jaehyun’s friend!!111!!! (2:50am)** fine gnite ):  
**scoops (3:40am)** i’m still here

 

 

 

Making friends, Seokmin realizes, is actually really hard. Which is probably why he didn’t have that many. Those that he did have were people he’d known for practically forever like Seungkwan, whose family lived two floors above them in their apartment complex, Soonyoung, whose meeting Seokmin doesn’t remember the exact details of, but according to Soonyoung, it involved someone hitting the other in the face on the jungle gym, and Mingyu, who’d uncannily shared every class with him from first grade in elementary school all the way to senior year in high school. Or, they were people like Minghao, who saw him basically twenty-four seven during the school year (Seokmin barely left their room), or Vernon, who he saw every time he saw Seungkwan.

That just left Jeonghan, Seungcheol, and Jihoon, all who had been friends with Soonyoung first, making the process of getting to know them go much smoother than it would with strangers. Maybe not so much with Jihoon, but that was beside the point. Of course, there were still things Seokmin couldn’t talk to them about without wanting to crawl under a rock, like farts. They were close, but not _that_ close.

Getting to know Jung Jaehyun is, in contrast, more turbulent. Aside from what Seungkwan calls Seokmin’s figurative “boner” for the guy (that was when Seokmin again thought about making new friends, but then realized he didn’t have the time or energy for that), it was awkward, to say the least, trying to learn more about each other and find what common ground they had, apart from their majors, and usually resulted in this weird back and forth of random questions, trying to figure out what the other liked.

“Do you like basketball?” Jaehyun asks him one day, when they’re on their way to lecture. Their morning patterns were pretty similar – Jaehyun woke up at seven to take showers while Seokmin woke up at seven to finish any questions he forgot to do the night before. Jaehyun’s words, not his.

“Oh, yeah!” Seokmin readily agrees. It was fun watching NBA matches. Also, playing no-rule basketball with Soonyoung, Mingyu, and Seungkwan was hilarious because they fouled each other left and right.

Jaehyun’s eyes light up, excited. Or maybe that’s just the sun reflecting in them. He’s trying to be… _impartial_ , something Seungkwan says he severely lacks when it comes to Jaehyun. Either way, Seokmin can hear his heart thumping loudly in his chest at how happy Jaehyun looks. “Awesome! Hey, do you wanna meet up sometime at the gym to play with me and some of these other guys I know?”

Seokmin freezes. The last time he played basketball was probably during P.E in high school, and even then, his skills were laughable. Not to mention, he’d only been to the campus gym maybe two times during his whole college career and the basketball dudes had intimidated him the most. “Uh…” he starts, trying to think of the best way to turn down Jaehyun’s offer. Not that he didn’t want to play basketball with Jaehyun, or watch Jaehyun play basketball. Because that would be a sight.

“Lemme guess, you can’t?” Jaehyun intervenes after an awkward moment of Seokmin searching for the right words, but failing to find them. A tight smile pulls on his lips. “Hey, no worries, I get it!” he chuckles, still sounding disappointed, when he sees Seokmin’s wide eyed expression and claps him on the shoulder for good measure. They don’t talk again until lecture is over to say their friendly goodbyes.

But once they find their niche, the words come a lot easier. Whether it’s complaining about homework assignments over text, or asking each other why they’re Biochemistry majors – Seokmin’s been inspired to go into pharmacy, Jaehyun is daringly thinking about Pre-Med – they end up finding some kind of comfortable rhythm even though uncomfortable silences are still littered throughout the time they end up spending together.

And then Seokmin finds out Jaehyun plays Pokemon Go.

They’re in the library again a few weeks later, studying for the upcoming midterm together. Jaehyun, Seokmin’s learned after spending a good amount of time doing their assignments across from each other, is actually really organized and good at pacing out his workload, unlike Seokmin and a lot of his friends, who all pretty much subject themselves to the thrill of doing work last minute. Lab had gone pretty smoothly with Jaehyun as his partner – usually when Seokmin worked with Jeonghan, someone was always rushing to finish things up and had to sprint to campus to turn it in (usually Seokmin) – which was a pleasant change of pace. They’d decided to be partners again next time, to Jeonghan’s dismay, who was stuck working with Im Nayoung, a girl Seokmin remembers going to his high school, super organized and practically a perfectionist, especially when it came to pep rally decorations.

It’s maybe four in the evening when Seokmin finally lets himself take a quick bathroom break, his head swimming with how much information he’s crammed into the confines of his skull during the past two days. Jaehyun’s still staring at one of their old homework assignments with his nose cutely scrunched in deep focus, per usual, when Seokmin looks up. Seokmin only lets himself mouth soundlessly “why is Jung Jaehyun so adorable” once he’s at the urinal. Some guy who’s washing his hands in the sink gives him this weird look, and Seokmin just presses his lips together.

He’s walking back to his seat across from Jaehyun when it happens. The way their seats are situated requires Seokmin to walk past Jaehyun to get back to his place, which gives him a decent view of Jaehyun’s phone screen - probably taken out once Jaehyun realized that he should take a break from studying, too, after seeing Seokmin wander off. Seokmin doesn’t really mean to peek because that’s rude, but his eyes kind of gravitate toward that direction on their own, and it’s not like Jaehyun would do anything stupid like watch porn on the school’s wi-fi...

And that’s when Seokmin sees the familiar blue-green map with Jaehyun’s character standing in the middle of it. _Oh my god._

“Are you playing Pokemon Go right now?” Seokmin exclaims over Jaehyun’s shoulder, forgetting the carefully crafted friendship he’s been trying to kindle in a moment of his inner Pokemon nerd. Jaehyun flinches, startled, fumbling with his phone. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m just excited –”

Jaehyun laughs quietly once he’s recovered from the initial shock before putting a finger over his lips. He tilts his head to Seokmin’s left, gesturing for him to look. When he does, he sees a good number of people sitting nearby glaring at him before going back to their books. Seokmin grins sheepishly before taking his seat across from Jaehyun again.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun whispers, putting his phone down on the table so Seokmin can get a look at his screen. Now that he thinks about it, Jaehyun did say something about his Eevee that first day they met in lecture. “I’m so bad at it, though, I don’t get how anything works like?” He lets out another quiet, this time self-deprecating, laugh, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “Help me?”

Seokmin pulls the phone closer to him so he can look through Jaehyun’s Pokemon and items. Lots of Pidgeys and unhatched eggs. When he goes back to the home screen, he sees that Jaehyun is close to leveling up. “Hey, you’re almost to level 5!” Seokmin encourages, sliding the phone back towards Jaehyun. “If you walk to the end of the hallway, you can get close enough to the PokeStop nearby and spin it to get some XP. I mean, if you wanna level up, that is. Not saying you have to –”

Jaehyun gets up quickly before Seokmin can finish, determination in his eyes. When he comes back, he brandishes his phone in front of Seokmin’s face proudly, with “Level 5” in large print glowing on the screen. “Thanks for telling me,” Jaehyun says, nearly bouncing in his seat with excitement. Could he get more adorable? “Every time I ask my friend to help explain things to me, he just laughs.”

Seokmin laughs, thinking of Seungkwan. “Yeah, no problem,” he says, a grin spreading on his face, Jaehyun’s giddiness rubbing off on him. “You might want to pay attention to what Professor Willow’s gonna say next,” he suggests as Jaehyun’s drinking from his water bottle, Adam’s apple bobbing. Seokmin averts his gaze, feeling his cheeks flush. How Jaehyun managed to go from super cute to super hot in less than ten seconds was something only God knew the answer to.

While Jaehyun scrambles back to looking at his phone, Seokmin tries to re-focus on studying again. He’s in the midst of reading the same sentence a third time when Jaehyun taps his arm. “Did you know the library was a gym?” he whispers, his face a lot closer than Seokmin’s used to it being when he looks up.

“Um,” Seokmin, the oracle of Pokemon Go knowledge in Jaehyun’s eyes, articulates, simultaneously reminding himself that blurting out _I like your face so much_ would definitely make things awkward between them. “Yeah.”

Jaehyun just gapes in response, leaning back. When he goes back to looking intently at his phone screen, Seokmin wonders if it’s too much to tell Jaehyun that he’s actually stationed his Vaporeon here. He had just figured out you didn’t have to be physically in front of a PokeStop to spin for it.

“I’m gonna battle it,” Jaehyun tells him, that determined glint in his eyes again. Seokmin chokes on air.

“With what?” he hisses, concerned for Jaehyun’s well-being. The last time Seokmin checked, someone left their CP 1557 Lapras here. He was lucky that they were on the same team, but it didn’t seem like Jaehyun shared that advantage. Jaehyun holds up his phone so Seokmin can see, revealing a CP 276 Pidgeot that he assumes Jaehyun’s friend, who had a modicum of pity, helped him with.

“Um…” Seokmin starts, trying to think of a way to convince Jaehyun to back down. But Jaehyun looks so enthusiastic about his plan that he falters. It’s like taking candy away from a baby. “About that…”

“It’ll be fine!” Jaehyun says, as if he senses Seokmin’s worries, but not the depth of them. “Isn’t Flying good against Water?”

Seokmin coughs, trying not to laugh. Jung Jaehyun really _is_ a Pokemon noob. But a much more endearing Pokemon noob, unlike, say, Seungkwan who kept bugging Seokmin even after he linked him to a Pokemon Go walkthrough guide. He feels a sudden flood of emotion and wonders if this is how parents feel when they let go of the handlebars on their child’s bicycle. Jeonghan’s face comes to mind, for some reason.

Jaehyun puts the phone between them again, so Seokmin can watch as the battle begins. Despite Jaehyun’s incessant tapping, the Lapras decimates his Pidgeot and collection of Pidgeys, Zubats, and a Bulbasaur in five seconds flat.

“I was trying to tell you,” Seokmin shrugs, voice quiet as Jaehyun droops onto his still-open textbook before him. When he looks up at Seokmin, there’s a hint of a pout on his lips and it’s the cutest thing Seokmin’s ever seen – erase whatever held the title in his mind before (probably either puppies or another of Jaehyun’s adorable facial expressions), this is definitely the winner – and Seokmin does his best not to clutch his chest and keel over –

And then Jaehyun _whines_. “Why didn’t you?” he says, drawing out the last word and it’s literally everything. Seokmin nearly dies right then and there.

In all honesty, he does feel a little bad that he didn’t give Jaehyun more of a heads up. But as he’s trying to cover his giggles with what hopefully sounds like a laugh, Jaehyun joining in after a beat, Seokmin doesn’t really regret anything.

 

 

 

“So when are you gonna tell Jaehyun you like him?”

Leave it to Xu Minghao to cut to the fucking chase. Seokmin nearly spits out his water at Jihoon, who’s sitting across from him, before willing all his facial muscles to prevent any projectile motion because it’s _Jihoon_. The almost-target just raises his eyebrows at him, judgmental, before shaking his head.

“They literally walk each other to and from every class,” Jeonghan reminds them all, again, as if he didn’t start the whole “Seokmin and Jaehyun” conversation five minutes ago with the same observation. “It’s like Seokmin doesn’t even recognize my presence anymore.”

Soonyoung’s wiggling his eyebrows at him. Seungkwan looks like everything that he’s wanted to say has just been said by Minghao. Mingyu is working on his and Minghao’s project, alone, Seungcheol is on RA duty, and no one’s sure where Vernon went after he said he was going to the bathroom half an hour ago.

“You guys sound awfully close,” Junhui, Minghao’s big from his dance team, who Minghao invited into their dorm’s lounge for another so-called “study session,” remarks – as if his outsider perspective is conducive to their conversation. “Right, Wonwoo?” He turns to the guy who’s sitting next to him, extremely still in his chair. “Oops, I think he’s sleeping.”

“Did he really add you on Facebook?” Mingyu asks once he finally gets Minghao to look at their Word document. “Because I don’t believe it.”

Seokmin opens and closes his mouth, at a loss of how to reply. “Oh, believe it,” Seungkwan cuts in unhelpfully. “He talked to me about it for two hours. That’s some detail he can’t make up on the spot.”

Seokmin’s still flabbergasted at how his friends are so nonchalantly discussing this very serious proposition – as if it were _easy_ and _simple_ , like waiting for the toast to roll through the very convenient toaster in the dining hall, a slice of bread never emerging burnt – when Soonyoung nudges his arm and poses the question again. “So when are you gonna tell Jaehyun you like him?”

“Never!” Seokmin wails. It comes out louder than he thought it would. Wonwoo seems to flinch awake.

Vernon, who at that moment happened to open the door to come back inside, backs away slowly and closes it. Seokmin groans.

 

 

 

There are places Seokmin hates on campus. Dining halls at seven, when everyone finally remembers they have to eat before they close. The lecture hall he took his first Life Science midterm in during freshman year, because he bombed it. The Quad after nine in the morning, when everyone was rushing to class. The Quad when people handed out free food, hungry university students clogging Seokmin’s way to class. Crowded places in general. But out of all those places, he hates the gym the most.

It isn’t like he hates exercising. Exercising is great. Minghao was always telling him to go to the gym whenever Seokmin did his core-strengthening routine in the room, on the account that _you pay for that shit with your tuition_ and _you grunt really loudly by the time you start your fourth set_. The point of that being, Seokmin did, surprisingly, exercise.

He didn’t really mind the smell of sweat all that much, either. Well, maybe he was just being easy on himself – Seokmin did lean away from whenever Soonyoung tried to put an arm around his shoulders after his dance practice. But that isn’t his problem with the gym.

The problem is, everyone at the gym looks really intimidating.

Seokmin waits next to the water fountains, where the occasional sweaty person takes a drink, staring at his phone screen impatiently, waiting for Seungcheol’s text. He’d put _phone at 5% SAVE ME_ in the group chat an hour ago, and Seokmin, feeling bad that the message had been read by five with no replies thirty-five minutes later, had offered to lend Seungcheol his charger. Seungcheol just happened to be at the gym. Which is why Seokmin is now here, at his least-favorite establishment on campus, in the first place.

The first time Seokmin stepped into the gym, it had been one month into his freshman year. He’d decided to try some lifting, at Seungkwan’s suggestion (“I feel like every guy that comes back to visit our high school after his first year at Uni is a lot buffer than he used to be. At least I know you won’t make me feel like a limp noodle”). He was wandering around the machines aimlessly, not sure how to use anything, when someone asked if he would spot for them on the bench press. Seokmin, obviously knowing what he was getting himself into, agreed.

That person lifted more than Seokmin weighed. “Your turn?” they’d asked when they were finished. Seokmin stammered that he had to use the bathroom and never came back.

 _Seungcheol,_ he types once a guy with impressive arm muscles finally gets his fill from the water fountain. _Please save me._ His biceps had bulged just from pressing the button.

Five seconds pass. Seungcheol doesn’t read the message. Seokmin decides to be patient. Ten seconds. Four minutes.

He can’t do this anymore.

He’s in the middle of sending a glaringly distressed _I’M DYING CALL FOR HELP I’M NEAR THE WATER FOUNTAINS_ to Seungcheol when he hears a familiar laugh. “Hey, I let you win that last game, okay!” someone’s saying as they turn the corner and then, oh fuck, Jung Jaehyun is looking right at him.

Seokmin nearly drops his phone. There’s an awkward split second of just them, trying to comprehend the situation. The guy standing next to Jaehyun, probably one of his basketball friends from the way he’s holding a basketball under his left arm, looks from Seokmin to Jaehyun, then back at Seokmin. He takes the chance to dive for the taller water fountain first, leaving Jaehyun with the shorter one.

“Hey,” Jaehyun says, breaking the silence first, pushing his sweaty bangs back, out of his face. They kind of stick to the rest of his hair for a moment before sliding back into this weird halfway position – not quite settling back against his forehead, but not staying where he placed them – and it’s just enough for Seokmin to see his exposed forehead and _wow_ , is that a beautiful forehead – “Fancy seeing you here,” he chuckles. It doesn’t sound quite the same as it does when they’re sitting across from each other at the library or coffee shop, when it tickles Seokmin’s ears pleasantly. It’s more stiff. Awkward, maybe. It was always awkward seeing each other out of their normal places.

Jaehyun’s friend pauses from drinking at the water fountain, giving Jaehyun a funny look at his statement before bending back down again. “Yeah,” Seokmin says, brain short-circuiting from thinking of what to say and the wee two hours of sleep he got last night. “Fancy seeing you here,” comes out of his mouth at the end, cringing inwardly at the repetition, which is pretty pathetic, even in Seokmin’s book. Jaehyun’s friend pauses again, this time giving Seokmin the same look he gave Jaehyun, and it says something that Jihoon would probably say aloud.

“Oh yeah!” Jaehyun says, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “This is my friend, Dongyoung.” Seokmin stretches out a hand in habit, which Jaehyun’s friend – Dongyoung – takes with his still-clammy one. For some reason, the name sounds familiar. “He’s a grade older than us, ancient, really –”

And then it hits him. _Kim_ Dongyoung. Leader of the tenor section. Head choir boy. The one who always knew when Seokmin was just a little bit off-pitch. He would totally recognize Seokmin. He would totally recognize Seokmin and tell Jaehyun that they went to the same high school and that would lead to an unfortunate downward spiral of Jaehyun asking Seokmin why he didn’t tell him that and then things would be super awkward between them again. He guesses he should count his blessings that he actually got to hang out with Jaehyun for the past few months, living out part of his dream before he dies of embarrassment.

Dongyoung looks at him. Like, really looks at him this time. Jaehyun’s drinking from the water fountain now, and Seokmin wonders if he’d been asked a question when he wasn’t listening.

“You know,” Dongyoung starts, thoughtfully. Jaehyun wipes his mouth using the bottom of his shirt, exposing a slice of his abdominal region for a brief, too-fleeting (in Seokmin’s opinion) moment, where there was definitely some definition of abs there. Not that he can enjoy that fact while Dongyoung is still looking at him. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

Seokmin laughs nervously. _Keep it together, keep it together._ “Who knows?” Seokmin says, trying his best to be nonchalant. “Maybe we saw each other in a lecture or something.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Dongyoung’s an applied music major,” he explains. Some inner part of Seokmin screams. As he’s thinking the sound of his inner turmoil is ringing in his ears, Jaehyun looks pointedly down at Seokmin’s pants pockets. “Is that you?” he asks at the sound of Seokmin’s phone.

“Oh,” Seokmin stutters, grabbing for it. It’s Seungcheol. Bless. “Um, I gotta take this, but I’ll see you around?” he says to Jaehyun as his finger hovers over the “answer” button. Jaehyun gives him a grin and a thumbs up in response and Dongyoung just waves, politely, as Seokmin speed walks to the exit, pressing the phone against his ear.

“Hey, sorry I made you wait,” Seungcheol says as Seokmin starts back to the dorms. “I just finished my workout now. Are you still by the water fountains?”

Well, shit. But Seokmin’s not going back in there after he just barely escaped. He slows to a stop, looking back to the gym that he left behind. “Uh…could you meet me by the tennis courts instead?”

 

 

 

**Group chat: high school squad**

**seok (3:45pm)** wtf  
**seok (3:45pm)** i just saw kim dongyoung  
**seok (3:45pm)** wtf wtf wtf  
**seok (3:46pm)** did u guys know he goes here?  
**seok (3:46pm)** WHY DOES BASICALLY EVERYONE FROM MY PAST GO HERE  
**boo (3:47pm)** omg no  
**boo (3:47pm)** did u talk to him???  
**soon (3:47pm)** yea he’s in my grade  
**soon (3:47pm)** we were in the same math class freshman yr  
**boo (3:47pm)** did he say anything about being ur talking voice being an eighth off  
**seok (3:48pm)** @boo no. he didn’t remember me bLESS  
**seok (3:48pm)** @soon y do u always withhold this impt info from me  
**soon (3:48pm)** how was i supposed to know it was impt to u???  
**boo (3:49pm)** he did that to me once. i was so offended bc ur talking voice is way pitchier than mine? like  
**seok (3:49pm)** HE’S FRIENDS WITH JAEHYUN  
**seok (3:49pm)** HE’S GONNA TELL HIM THAT WE WENT TO THE SAME HIGH SCHOOL  
**mgyu (3:49pm)** guys u woke me up  
**soon (3:50pm)** calm down seok ): if he didn’t remember u then it’ll b fine  
**seok (3:50pm)** MINGYU THERE IS A LARGER PROBLEM @ HAND  
**seok (3:50pm)** MY PRIDE  & DIGNITY  
**boo (3:50pm)** every fuckin time mingyu  
**boo (3:51pm)** and ia w soon. plus does it even rlly matter?  
**boo (3:51pm)** didn’t he say u guys r friends now? who cares?  
**seok (3:51pm)** ugh  
**seok (3:51pm)** i hate when u guys r logical  
**soon (3:52pm)** ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥  
**boo (3:52pm)** if we weren’t logical do u think ud still be alive rn  
**seok (3:53pm)** ……  
**seok (3:53pm)** i’m not gonna answer that  
**boo (3:53pm)** technically u just did  
**seok (3:53pm)** ……  
**mgyu (3:53pm)** guys all i wanna do is fall back asleep

 

 

 

All hell breaks loose the night before their second-to-last lab is due.

Not hell in the academic sense. The write-up hadn’t been too impossible with both Seokmin and Jaehyun’s combined effort over the past few days, working on it until four in the morning at the latest, sitting across from each other at the coffee shop with two coffees that Jaehyun had swiped between them. This kind of thing became a habit for them – when they knew they were going to be up super late, they’d opt for meeting up the coffee shop instead since it was closer to the dorms than the library, keeping each other awake for the most part.

A couple times, Seokmin wakes up at three AM, blinking, the blurry figure of Jaehyun across from him either typing away on his laptop or working on chemistry assignments. Jaehyun doesn’t usually notice Seokmin's awake until at least five minutes later, the longest, fifteen, and Seokmin can’t find it in himself to bother him.

“When did I fall asleep?” he asked the first time it happened, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Jaehyun had tapped his chin, scrunching his nose to consider an accurate time estimate.

“Maybe around twelve thirty?” Jaehyun tried. He went back to looking at something on his laptop screen.

“What?” Seokmin blurted, feeling bad about forcing Jaehyun to watch over his stuff as he enjoyed a nice, dreamless nap. “Why didn’t you wake me? I’m sorry I made you stay with me, this is so embarrassing, you probably could’ve gone to sleep by now…”

Jaehyun shook his head, a tired smile on his face. “I tried,” he told Seokmin. “Around one. But you didn’t wake up, so I guess you really needed the sleep.” Jaehyun had to be an angel in disguise. He took a sip of his coffee, probably long-cold and gross tasting, before continuing. “Honestly, it’s fine. I’m kinda behind in this class so I wanna finish this tonight. And I would nap here, too. If I could.”

“You can’t?” Seokmin asked, before he could think better of it. But, again, Jaehyun didn’t look like he minded the distraction.

“I’m a really light sleeper,” he explained to Seokmin, a hint of a grimace on his face. “Can’t sleep if there’s any noise. When my roommate goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it drives me nuts,” Jaehyun chuckled sadly. Seokmin, still half-dazed, suddenly wanted to wrap Jaehyun up in a blanket right then and there. He almost did, before remembering he wasn’t in his room, and the thing he thought might be a blanket was actually the scratch paper he had drawn compounds on.

It’s that situation again tonight, Seokmin doing his best not to succumb to his sleepiness, but fighting a losing battle. Getting up every thirty minutes to go to the bathroom wasn’t working. Neither was poking his right index finger with his pencil. He’d only gotten an hour of sleep the night before – the result of starting his paper at five in the morning when it was due at noon – and the rest of the day he’d spent feeling uncharacteristically drowsy and chilly, like every lecture hall’s air conditioning was turned on higher than usual. At around eleven, with their lab write-up completed and Seokmin’s other homework assignment half-done, he decides to cut his losses and nap, telling Jaehyun, whose nose is scrunched up in adorable concentration yet again, to wake him up in thirty minutes.

It’s a sound, pitch dark sleep at first. And then the dream kicks in – Jaehyun shaking him awake, face hovering near Seokmin’s. Jaehyun calls his name once. Again. Three times.

Dream-Seokmin mumbles incoherently back at him. That makes Dream-Jaehyun frown. “Seokmin, wake up,” he says, shaking him again. It all feels extremely real, like a dream you wake up from and can’t distinguish from reality. “It’s already twelve.”

Dream-Seokmin shakes Dream-Jaehyun’s hand off his arm, which makes Dream-Jaehyun laugh dryly. “Come on,” he prods Seokmin, shaking on his arm again. “Hey, Seokmin.”

He feels Dream-Jaehyun’s hand graze his forehead briefly in the midst of trying to pull him up to a sitting position. Then, that hand presses more firmly against his forehead. “Fuck,” Dream-Jaehyun says, sounding distressed. He puts his hand against Seokmin’s forehead again. “You’re really hot, Seokmin.”

Dream-Seokmin giggles at that. “I think _you’re_ the really hot one, Jaehyun,” he replies, words drawn out from his grogginess.

Dream-Jaehyun laughs a little at that. Is he amused? Does he like that Seokmin complimented him? “Hey, but seriously Seokmin, your forehead is really hot, it might be a fever –”

And then the pitch of a dreamless sleep seeps over him again.

Of course, Seokmin doesn’t recognize that all hell has broken loose until he wakes up in his dorm room, sweating in a burrito of sheets. A pile of blankets that suspiciously look like Jeonghan – the hair on the pillow is the dead giveaway – are on the floor in between his bed and Minghao’s desk, currently occupied by said owner, who turns away from his laptop screen to look at Seokmin when he hears him trying to kick off the blankets he’s been buried in.

“Oh,” Minghao says once Seokmin’s done moving. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah, I’m awake,” Seokmin tries to shoot back, but his voice comes out as a parched croak instead. Minghao, the ever helpful when he wasn’t being a little shit, hands him one of their emergency water bottles. Seokmin gulps down half of it, offering a quick _thanks_ before continuing. “Did I just sleep a whole day away?”

Minghao gives him a look full of concern. “No,” he starts slowly, as if he’s afraid to tell Seokmin the end of a story he’s already heard, but Minghao doesn’t know that. “It’s five AM right now. I think Jeonghan and Jaehyun carried you back here before one.”

“Wait,” Seokmin interrupts before Minghao can say more. Jeonghan and Jaehyun? The last thing he remembers is sitting across from Jaehyun at the coffee shop, asking him to wake him up in thirty minutes. And then that dream, when Jaehyun shook Seokmin awake. In which he told Jaehyun that he thought he was really hot. Unless that _wasn’t_ a dream. “What?” he squeaks, the horrible realization dawning on him.

“You had a fever,” Minghao tells him, tossing him a bottle of Tylenol. Which, in Seokmin’s uncoordinated and tired state, just hits his lap and rolls onto the ground, stopped only by Jeonghan’s side. Minghao gets up, picks up the bottle, and this time hands it to Seokmin. “It might be the flu? Didn’t you say you felt cold all day? That might’ve been chills.”

Seokmin takes a pill wordlessly, too tired to say anything and still in a state of shock. He really told Jung Jaehyun that he thought he was really hot. Did friends do that? Not the kind of friends he was with Jaehyun, at least. Did he just make things awkward again by telling him that, then?

They’re silent after that. Seokmin struggles to put the Tylenol bottle on the floor next to his bed. Minghao keeps watching him, making sure something bad doesn’t happen, like Seokmin falling out of his bed.

“Minghao,” Seokmin whispers after he’s settled back into the sheets with much effort. Minghao, who had turned back to his laptop after he thought Seokmin was going back to sleep, tilts his head, listening. “I think I told Jung Jaehyun that he’s really hot,” he wails, muffled by his pillow.

Seokmin thinks he hears Minghao say something along the lines of _finally, you wuss_ before he falls back asleep again.

 

 

 

Seokmin wakes up several times – to pee and to his phone vibrating under his pillow (who put that thing there?) – before actually coming to again. By then, it’s afternoon of the next day, and he only has enough strength to drag himself to his desk, where there’s a bowl of lukewarm soup and a piece of bread that someone, probably Minghao, swiped for him. He eats it and then crawls back to his bed, fishing his phone out from under his pillow to see what messages he’s received since he passed out.

There’s one hundred and thirteen new messages in the _SVT_ group chat. Seokmin’s not really in the mood to scroll through those at the moment, so he dismisses that notification. Individual texts from most of his friends – even Vernon, whose he does check because Seokmin’s sure this is the first time Vernon’s texted any of them (on account of Seungkwan always complaining that he barely uses his phone). It says a succinct _feel better_ , devoid of emojis.

There’s five texts from Jeonghan, which he also ends up reading, telling him that he’d tell their TA that Seokmin was too sick to make lab today, but that he should send the TA an email himself telling him that too. Shit, Seokmin thinks as he registers that it’s already three in the afternoon. He actually managed to sleep through all his classes today.

Then there’s notifications about new emails – one from his lab TA, telling him that their write-ups were due today, others from the university career center and alumni network, which he never really read, anyway. And then, at the bottom of it all, are two texts from Jaehyun.

Fuck. Seokmin feels like he’s going to throw up. Maybe literally. He turns to his side, remembering that horror story Soonyoung told him of some frat dude choking on his own vomit because he had passed out laying on his back. Thankfully nothing comes out, but Seokmin’s stomach is swirling ominously as he opens the messages with a shaky thumb.

**jaehyun (8:19am)** hey seokmin! i hope you’re feeling better! you kinda passed out after i tried waking you up last night, idk if you remember. i didn’t want to leave you there so i called someone using your phone…i hope that’s ok with you. i kinda panicked and thought it would be best to call your parents? so i called your mom contact but it turned out to be your friend…yoon jeonghan? haha that was interesting. and we carried you back to your dorm room together.  
**jaehyun (8:21am)** don’t worry about lab and stuff! not sure if you’ll see this but we finished the writeup anyway, everything should be fine! get plenty of rest and text me back whenever you wake up :) 

No. _No_. Jaehyun knew about how Jeonghan called himself Seokmin’s mom now. And Seokmin had told him he thought Jaehyun was really hot. Wait, did Jaehyun and Jeonghan _speak_ to each other when they carried Seokmin back to his dorm room? How else did Jaehyun know Jeonghan’s name?

Jaehyun definitely thought Seokmin was a loser now. If he hadn’t before. Maybe all this time they’d spent together as friends was really Jaehyun pitying how Seokmin desperately wanted new ones. Or maybe it was just to get help on his chemistry homework.

Maybe he’d known that Seokmin had a huge crush on him this whole time.

Seokmin groans, burying himself under the blankets, eyes still open in the artificial darkness of his sheets. He keeps thinking the same thoughts over and over and over again until the darkness becomes his eyelids closing, taking him back to a deep sleep.

 

 

 

It’s two days later when Seokmin finally has enough energy again to walk himself to and from classes. He spends the rest of the time in his dorm, lying around in his bed with his laptop propped against his chin, watching anime. He doesn’t walk past the library or the coffee shop, or go to his eight AM class at the ungodly far lecture hall. He doesn’t text Jaehyun back.

“I need you to go to lecture for me,” he told Jeonghan the other day, when Jeonghan called to make sure he was doing okay. “Eight in the morning, three times a week. And take notes.”

“Are you serious right now?” Jeonghan had said, a chuckle in his voice, like he expected Seokmin to tell him it was all a joke. A moment of silence. “Shit, you’re really serious, Seokmin?”

“Please, Jeonghan!” he whined. He wasn’t ready to face Jaehyun yet. Maybe ever. “For your child!”

Jeonghan considered for a bit. “Fine,” he finally grumbled. “But honestly, Seokmin, I don’t think Jaehyun minds, you know he told me –” And then, in a spur of momentary panic from hearing Jaehyun’s name, Seokmin hung up.

In fact, Seokmin makes a pointed effort to stop talking about Jaehyun. He changes the subject whenever Seungkwan gives him that certain look – the one that he had when he was going to bring up Jaehyun to Seokmin, a mix of a smirk and admiration at Seokmin’s “endearing idiocy,” as he put it – with a very smooth, “Uh, s-so the weather today! Is lovely! Isn’t it?” He says he has to go to the bathroom whenever Minghao tries to ask him whether Seokmin will be hanging out with his “friend” – meaning Jaehyun. Soonyoung and Seungcheol catch on fairly quickly, either talking about the weird things that happened to him that day (Soonyoung) or funny stories about his residents (Seungcheol). Vernon is always silently helping himself to whoever’s fries are at the table and Seokmin highly doubts Mingyu even remembers Jaehyun’s name.

It’s going so well that Seokmin tries to take the next step, which is to stop thinking about Jaehyun. But this, Seokmin discovers as he’s struggling through his chemistry homework for once, Jeonghan’s notes almost indecipherable, is a lot harder than it sounds.

“He asked how you were, you know,” Jeonghan tells him sometime after the fever incident, mouth full of chips from Seokmin and Minghao’s snack stash, sitting on the floor as Seokmin’s at his desk, asking Jeonghan every now and then to decode the notes he’s taken for him. “That Jaehyuk kid.”

“Jae _hyun,_ ” Seokmin corrects, in habit. Shit, he was doing so well not saying his name. Seokmin had even managed to avoid Jaehyun in lab the other day, walking into the classroom just in the nick of time, the only open seats being near the back – behind Jaehyun – or at the very corner near the door, with the projector blocking his view of the blackboard. Of course he chose the corner seat, and bolted out of class as soon as it was over.

A smug smile grows on Jeonghan’s lips. “Ha!” he exclaims. “I knew it, you still like him!”

Seokmin feels his face go hot. Jeonghan just continues, unperturbed by Seokmin’s lack of flustered denials and squawks that usually accompanied the subject matter. “You know, I think he likes you, too? I mean, he stopped me outside lecture today and asked if you were still sick.” Seokmin feels the heat of Jeonghan’s glance even though he’s still hunched over, staring at the assignment that continues to not make sense to him. “He looked pretty worried about you.”

“He’s not,” Seokmin starts, wanting to tell Jeonghan to drop the subject. But he had to admit that the way Jeonghan described it, it sounded like Jaehyun still wanted to be his friend. Because Jaehyun didn’t like Seokmin, obviously. Jeonghan was stretching the truth to make him feel better. “We’re not…”

Seokmin stops before he can deliver the finishing blow, paired with a self-deprecating chuckle trying its best to sound nonchalant. _We’re not even friends._ Because even though Seokmin knew that this was the rational conclusion of everything he’d done in the past two weeks, the penultimate event to the inevitable end, and that acceptance was the first step of going back to how things had been before – Seokmin only hanging out with his small circle of friends, Jaehyun his untouchable crush from high school – something in his heart twists thinking about the last few months he’d spent being Jaehyun’s friend – late nights working on homework, Seokmin actually getting more sleep than before thanks to Jaehyun’s organized pacing of assignments rubbing off on him, laughing at Jaehyun slowly learning the ins and outs of Pokemon Go, Jaehyun’s eyes sparkling with excitement when he spoke about his future aspirations, Jaehyun’s nose scrunched in concentration, Jaehyun –

Jeonghan’s hand is on his shoulder. In his other is the pencil Seokmin dropped, the pretty nice mechanical kind. It’s _that_ pencil, the one he never really could bring himself to return to Jaehyun. He hadn’t even realized he’d been using it.

Jeonghan smiles at him again, surprisingly gentle this time. “What have you got to lose?”

 

 

 

Seokmin’s still fucked, though.

It’s eleven, a couple nights after he talked to Jeonghan, when someone knocks on his door. It couldn’t be Minghao – his dance team was having their “hell week” and Minghao wouldn’t be back until maybe two in the morning, earliest. Also, Minghao never forgot his card key. Which meant that it was probably Seungkwan, who liked to come over to his room at whim, and Seokmin, being a good hyung but also enjoying his presence, usually let him in.

“Seungkwan,” he groans, pausing the video he was watching and shoving his feet into his slippers. He probably looks like shit, but it’s just Seungkwan, who’d definitely seen him in a worse state before, so it doesn’t matter. “I _told_ you to text me before coming over –”

The person standing on the other side of the door is definitely not Seungkwan. He’s a little taller and wearing a sweater with their university’s logo on it that Seungkwan wouldn’t be caught dead with (one of their colors was a mustard-like yellow that he claimed made his face look super round). “Hey,” Jung Jaehyun says with a small smile on his face, hints of dimples on his cheeks, and Seokmin decides that, contrary to what Jeonghan implied, he actually has some things to lose.

Like his dignity. “Oh,” Seokmin hears himself say, as if on autopilot. His fingers are still clutching the edge of his door. “Hi.”

Jaehyun looks at him for a good minute, in utter silence. Maybe he was waiting for Seokmin to say something, but Seokmin’s mind was burnt from overthinking. How did Jaehyun know he lived here? Did he remember from when he carried Seokmin back that night? Why was Jaehyun here, anyway? Hadn’t Seokmin been avoiding him? Why did he have to come here _now,_ when Seokmin had yet to mentally prepare himself for this whole encounter?

“Um,” Jaehyun clears his throat. Seokmin snaps his head up from where he was looking at the floor to meet Jaehyun’s eyes. Big mistake. They were mesmerizing, and it only made Seokmin’s mind go even more blank, if that was possible. He tilts his head forward, to the direction of Seokmin’s room. “Can I, uh, come in? If that’s alright with you?”

“Oh!” Seokmin says, getting it now. “Yeah, uh, sure.” He scrambles to the side, letting Jaehyun in before closing the door behind him.

Seeing Jaehyun in his room is surreal, to say the least. Seokmin remembers imagining Jaehyun hanging out with him on his floor, watching movies and anime together. In his imagination, though, that happened after Jaehyun confessed his undying love for Seokmin. Which was obviously not going to happen now.

Jaehyun walks around in a small circle, trapped by Seokmin and Minghao’s random piles of old textbooks they kept forgetting to sell and half-dirty clothes. Seokmin’s face heats up, moving to make more room for Jaehyun to sit, but Jaehyun shakes his head. “Nah, it’s fine! I, uh,” he scratches the back of his neck, the situation awkward. “Just wanted to talk?”

Seokmin stares at him as Jaehyun’s finding the words to continue. “I…” he trails off, reaching a dead end. “Why didn’t you reply to my text?”

Oh no. Jaehyun’s trying to do _that_. Talk out their problems – the nice, adult way to solve things, except that Seokmin always said more than necessary, which usually created more.

What should he say? Seokmin swallows, uncomfortable, Jaehyun waiting patiently for an answer. _Sorry, didn’t get it?_ How about _I don’t have a phone?_ Except for the fact that it’s on Seokmin’s desk, in Jaehyun’s view. Or maybe _I think I’m gonna be sick,_ because he actually feels like he will be. “Uh…” he says, unintelligible, in the end.

Jaehyun frowns. “I was pretty worried when you didn’t come to lecture. Thought you were still sick or something?” He stops to rub his forehead, looking tired. “And then when I asked your friend Jeonghan, he said you’d been better for a while now.” He looks at Seokmin again and it makes Seokmin’s heart literally stop beating in his chest, because he’s never seen Jaehyun so distressed before and Seokmin shouldn’t be thinking that it makes him look attractive when he’s the cause of it all. “Are you avoiding me?”

“Yes,” Seokmin blurts, without transferring the message to his brain first, where it definitely would’ve stopped him from saying that out loud. Shit. Jaehyun blinks at the swiftness of his reply. “I mean,” he tries, waving his hands frantically. “No!”

Jaehyun takes a step closer to him, squinting as if he can figure out what Seokmin’s thinking by focusing his vision. Obviously, that doesn’t work. “Why?” he asks, sounding hurt. Which he shouldn’t. Seokmin literally just wants to turn into a pile of goo and seep through the dingy carpet of his room and avoid this whole conversation. “I thought we were friends, Seokmin?”

And in that moment, Seokmin feels like an utter and complete asshole. Here was Jaehyun, trying to fix whatever he thought he did wrong, when Seokmin was the one who messed things up by blurting out that he thought Jaehyun was hot in the first place, letting his feelings get in the way of their friendship. “No, no, we are!” Seokmin insists. “I just, I don’t know, felt so embarrassed? That you had to see me like that. All weird and saying weird stuff like thinking you’re hot and all.” _Which I totally don’t,_ his brain feeds to him next. “Which I totally do. Think you’re hot.”

Holy shit. That did not just come out of his mouth. Jaehyun’s eyes widen and Seokmin opens his mouth to salvage whatever he can. “I mean! I just, you know. I don’t know?” He’s sweating now and he wonders if Jaehyun notices. “I’ve liked you since high school.”

 _No_. Some part of Seokmin dies inside, withering into a husk of its former functional unit, along with his pride. He was so, so fucked. “Huh?” Jaehyun says, looking thoroughly confused now. He’s doing that scrunching thing with his nose, like when he’s trying to figure things he doesn’t understand out, and up-close, it’s not as adorable as Seokmin thought it was, but he still likes it, he just _likes_ Jaehyun –

“I like how your dimples only show when you smile. I like the way you asked me to be lab partners. I like the way you kind of scrunch your nose up when you’re focusing really hard on something, like right now. I like how you never judged me when I said something super awkward, kinda like what I’m doing, and how you tell me a lot about yourself even though we were practically strangers.” Seokmin can’t stop himself once he’s started, afraid that Jaehyun will tell him to stop before he can say everything. “I like how you suck at Pokemon Go and know nothing about type match-ups but ask for my opinion on stuff. I like how we’re friends.” He pauses to suck in a breath. “But I, uh, also like you more than a friend. I think. Maybe.”

He doesn’t look up at Jaehyun even after he’s done. The carpet in his dorm room is a fascinating shade of dark, moldy green that he never really noticed before. He’s aware of the fact that he’s literally just dug himself a hole so deep that it’d be impossible to crawl out of. Seokmin knows his face is probably as red as a tomato right now, and he’s already embarrassed himself enough in the last ten minutes or so that he really doesn’t need any more reasons for Jaehyun to think he’s weird.

Seokmin doesn’t really know what he’s expecting Jaehyun to do. Maybe walk out of his room right then and there, and ignore Seokmin for the rest of the semester. Say an awkward, “I’m flattered, but no thanks”? All he hoped was that Jaehyun would at least offer to stay friends. Or that they’d end up as acquaintances that greeted each other whenever they occasionally made eye contact.

What he doesn’t expect is Jaehyun saying, “I, uh.” He’s looking down at Seokmin’s carpet like Seokmin had been before his head jolted up at Jaehyun’s voice. And is it the crappy lighting of his dorm room, or is that a blush on Jaehyun’s cheeks? “Like you too, Seokmin.”

Holy shit. Jaehyun looks at him, which tells Seokmin that he actually just said that out loud. “Not since high school,” he stutters. Seokmin blinks, wondering if this is real. Jaehyun’s still standing before him when his eyes focus again. “Dongyoung told me we went to the same high school.” Jaehyun wrings his hands, and all Seokmin wants to do is take them into his own, but that was too much right now. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember? I don’t think we ever really talked.”

Jaehyun shakes his head, a stiff laugh escaping his lips in the pause between his words, stilted and sounding even more unsure than he did that first time, when he asked Seokmin if the seat next to him was open. Seokmin feels his heart swell with everything he’s feeling (hope, love, fear, anxiety) and takes a deep, shaky breath – as if it’ll calm both him and Jaehyun – before Jaehyun continues. “But anyway, um, I just really like hanging out with you. You’re, like, one of the few friends I’ve made since I’ve came to uni? I…” He covers his mouth with the back of one of his hands, flushed cheeks peeking out behind it. It muffles the last few words that he says, and Seokmin stands there for a moment, trying to comprehend everything.

 

 

_I wanna keep hanging out with you every day._

 

 

 

**Group chat: SVT**

**hoshbrown** added **Lee Jihoon** to the chat

 **hoshbrown** changed **Lee Jihoon** to **zhoon**

 **hoshbrown (7:34pm)** :D  
**hoshbrown (7:34pm)** jihoon said he had something impt 2 say in the chat  
**hoshbrown (7:34pm)** which in jihoon speak = saying congrats 2 seok  
**hoshbrown (7:35pm)** interpretation: “why am i here” means “i’m happy 4 u”  
**dk (7:35pm)** d’awwwwwww thnx jihoon!!!  
**zhoon (7:36pm)** why r u hoshbrown  
**dk (7:36pm)** …….  
**seungkwannie (7:37pm)** remember when soonyoung was taking japanese class and wanted to practice vocab?  
**seungkwannie (7:37pm)** and he was all like i’m a star! i’m a hoshi!  
**mingU (7:38pm)** and then jeonghan ate hash browns the next day  
**hoshbrown (7:38pm)** u luv me jihoon  
**dk (7:43pm)** where’d he go  
**dk (7:43pm)** my congrats??? ):

 **zhoon** has left the group chat

 **dk (7:45pm)** T____T  
**hoshbrown (7:45pm)** …..  
**seungkwannie (7:45pm)** hyung quick what does that mean in jihoon speak  
**hoshbrown (7:46pm)** uh  
**hoshbrown (7:46pm)** i think he loves us?????


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